Composed in the summer of 1978 at a time when I was spending almost every day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in search of inspiration, this music was originally written for and is dedicated to guitarist Eugene Chadbourne. Meant to GAS him, and to stretch his already prodigious virtuosity to even wilder extremes, many of the extended techniques used here (toy balloons, talking dolls, mbira keys, wet finger whoops) were learned from him and were an integral part of his improvisational language at that time. Others are standard to contemporary classical guitar notation (body knocks, whisks, bowing, multiple harmonics) and still others were the product of my own sick imagination (playing with pencils, rice, pulling strings out of the bridge notch).

Marc Ribot tackles all of these effects with unusual precision and an astouding virtuosity, adding his own personal touches to make the music even more beautiful than I could have imagined.

Guitarist Marc Ribot has released his own music on Island, Avant and Les Disques du Crepescule. He has performed worldwide with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, the Lounge Lizards, Chuck Berry, as well as his own solo projects and bands.